It needs to be said!

I have a girl in my young women's class called A. She's a new convert and is on fire. Her father was the first to be baptized and then he brought his kids. His wife wanted nothing to do with it. A's little brother obviously has emotional/anger issues. As I watched these two interact at church with their dad I started to make my own conjectures as to why. I said nothing to anyone about my theories except my husband because he is the Young Men's president. Then one day the dad came to church without his kids and a huge bandage across the top of his head. At the end of church I ran into him and asked, "Where's A? We missed her today." Then he told me. "She's shut off her phone because she doesn't want to talk to me. It's her grandma's fault (on her mother's side). She's always hated me. Can you tell me something? I beat up my wife before and I'll admit it was bad, but sometimes I'd come home from work and the house was a mess and she just can't do anything right. Can you blame me? and then she thinks she can take my kids away from me. No one thinks of the dad. Nobody thinks about how I'm suffering. My kids miss me. Especially my son. He loves me."

I was dumbfounded. He was bellowing all of this to me in the middle of the church halls. All could hear and I didn't know what to say. "I finally said to cut him off. I can't support you. You need to repent and talk to your bishop." I smiled and walked away, but this haunted me all week. I was so proud of A and her mom and really hoped I'd never see them again.

Then the next week A's dad was at church again. My husband and I are YM/YW presidents so he comes to find us after sacrament meeting. "I want to ask you how my kids are doing in your class. I keep asking for forgiveness but A won't forgive me. She says she has to protect her mom but Jesus teaches us to forgive." I was livid. I started screaming at him. If there were people at church that didn't know he was a wife beater they all know now. During the entire thing he just smiled a stupid smile and then said, "You've taught my daughter well. She acts just like you."

So my next three blogs are going to be dedicated to this dumb a@& and all the other dumb a@%'s around the world. (I still can't bring myself to say it, but I'm thinking it all the time).

1. What is Christlike forgiveness and what does it look like?

2. What is repentance and what does it look like?

3. The freedom that comes from taking responsibility for your actions.

And anything else I think of that needs to be said, because it does need to be said.